FERC has granted Equitrans LP permission to bring online the Ohio Valley Connector (OVC) pipeline. It traverses West Virginia and ends in Ohio, and it will transport natural gas produced in the Appalachian Basin to market.

In a notice Tuesday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said Equitrans, a subsidiary of EQT Midstream Partners LP, had satisfied the environmental conditions outlined in the certificate of public convenience and necessity it issued for the project last December [CP15-41].

FERC’s J. Rich McGuire, director of the Division of Gas-Environment and Engineering, said that based upon inspections conducted last week and photographs submitted by Equitrans, the Commission determined “that restoration of the project is proceeding satisfactorily.”

OVC includes 37 miles of new pipeline, two new compressor stations with combined 36,000 hp and three interconnections with other pipelines in the region.

Specifically, OVC includes about 36.2 miles of 30-inch diameter pipeline from Wetzel County, WV, to Monroe County, OH; 0.2 miles of 20-inch diameter pipeline in Monroe County, and 0.6 miles of 16-inch diameter pipeline in Wetzel County. One compressor station was built in Monroe County and the other in Wetzel County.

Equitrans spokeswoman Natalie Cox told NGI’s Shale Daily on Wednesday that OVC has been certified by FERC to provide up to 850 MMcf/d of capacity. EQT Corp. is the anchor shipper at 650 MMcf/d.

In a pre-filing review request to FERC in June 2014, Equitrans estimated that the OVC project would ultimately cost more than $415 million (see Shale Daily, Oct. 15, 2014).